Tag: progress

A year ago, I didn’t think I was capable of a sustained 5-minute run. Today, I ran my second uninterrupted 5km. This september, I’ll run my first 5 mile meet. A few years ago, I felt a sense of accomplishment if I managed to write a mere two short stories in any given year. Last…

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After the success of last year’s attempt to write 100K words, I upped the ante in 2017 and set my sights for 125K. And lo and behold: with a day left in the first half of the year, 62501 words have already been written! I can’t sing the praise of the Beeminder goal tracking tool…

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Well, let me rephrase that. I wrote1, edited2, revised2, outlined1, translated3, reviewed4, critiqued4, and miscellaneous-othered5 100010 words. I set my goal for 100,000 words way back in January, performed some long division, and set up a Beeminder Goal for 274 words a day. Halfway through the year, with Summer approaching, I felt all stressed out…

If Theodore Sturgeon is right, I’m in the middle of the 10% that’s any good. Because–drum roll, please–I’ve passed the 90% 94.245% mark today of my goal to write 100K words in 2016! Yes, you read that right: in the interstices between my wife, my kids, my career, my feeble attempts at a social life,…

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I quietly passed the two-thirds mark this week of my endeavour to write (edit, revise, translate, critique) a hundred thousand words in 2016. Beeminder has been a tremendous help in keeping me on track. In the 66773 words I’ve counted so far*, I have: written a single 300-word review; translated 3000 words of non-fiction; created…

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There once was a Dutch-language science fiction story I attempted to win the Harland Awards short story contest with. I subsequently translated it into English, aiming to have both versions ripe for submission at the same time: the deadline for the new Dutch Edge ZERO market. The process to complete revisions on both versions at the same…

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Still going strong. The second month of my 100K year (the year in which I enlist the help of Beeminder to write at least a hundred thousand words) has yielded: a pro sale of one of my January stories; 8680 words of newly drafted, edited or revised short fiction; 1170 words of edited or outlined novel; two brand new…

So far, so excellent. The first month of my 100K year (the year in which I enlist the help of Beeminder to write at least a hundred thousand words) has yielded: 13580 words of newly drafted fiction, edited or revised fiction, and critiques of other writers’ fiction (taking into account how I tally my productivity,…

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Arguably the most important news of the new Millennium–by some standards, by far the most important news since the onset of the Industrial Revolution–seems to be landing with much less of a splash than I expected. Reason enough in itself for world-wide celebration, immense fireworks (well, maybe not those), gallons of champagne, and an unprecedented baby…

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A hundred words a day was too easy. Raising the challenge to 150 helped some, but I was still building a huge buffer that enabled me to skip days and still stay ahead on Beeminder. Retro-ratcheting the buffer (raising the target line to trim the buffer to zero) helped only for a brief time. Let’s…